Apogee Silver Receives Approval for the Development of Pulacayo by Bolivia's Ministry of Environment & Water

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Oct. 16, 2013) - Apogee Silver Ltd. ("Apogee" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:APE)(OTCQX:AGEEF) announces that Bolivia's Ministry of Environment and Water ("MMA y A") has approved the Environmental Impact Assessment ("EIA") for the Pulacayo silver and base metals project ("Pulacayo Project") in southwestern Bolivia. The approval of the EIA is the key milestone in the advancement of the project towards the construction phase.

Neil Ringdahl, President and CEO of Apogee, commented "We are very pleased about the approval of the Pulacayo Project by the Ministry of Environment and Water. This completes an extensive regulatory process and represents an essential step in bringing the Pulacayo Project to production. We wish to acknowledge the Pulacayo Cooperative and local communities for their valuable input and support, as well as the Bolivian authorities for their expeditious review and approval."

The EIA was submitted to the MMA y A on December 17, 2012. The submission was the result of over 30 months of technical studies and consultations, including a comprehensive water management plan, the feasibility study, archeological studies, flora and fauna studies, mine closure planning, social baseline studies, and results from two years of public consultations with local communities.

The approval of the EIA will allow Apogee, subject to the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals and sufficient funding, to begin mine and concentrator construction with a targeted production rate of up to 560 tonnes per day (tpd) at the Pulacayo Project. The recently published feasibility study (filed on www.sedar.com on March 1, 2013, subsequent to the original EIA submission) anticipated a buildup to a production rate of 1,000 tpd through two designed 500 tpd concentrator modules over three years. The Company believes it will be able to successfully modify this environmental permit at such time it exceeds 500 tpd, given that part of the current permit already incorporates a 1,000 tpd tailings storage facility and other mining infrastructure as designed.

Initial earthworks for the concentrator are completed and a 1.3 km access road from the Pulacayo concentrator site to the newly paved, government-funded, double lane Potosi-Uyuni highway has been built, significantly improving access to the Pulacayo Project. As part of the ongoing infrastructure improvements across Bolivia, another new, double lane, paved road connecting Pulacayo to Oruro via Uyuni is expected to be completed in early 2014. The entire 755 km access route to the port of Arica on the Chilean coast will then be completely paved. Additionally, a new national airport has been recently built at Uyuni, just 25 km from the mine. The airport currently hosts three commercial flights per day from La Paz and connecting flights to other parts of Bolivia, and it is understood that plans are underway to convert it into an international airport in the future.